Riverworld and Other Stories

  And what was he, Andrew Paxton Davis, a pacifist, a Christian, and a virtual slave, doing standing here and watching the battle among the heathens? Now, now, now was the time to escape.

  He quickly stuffed his few possessions in a fish-skin bag and grabbed the handle of his grail. Like the Arab in the night, I steal away, he thought. Except that I don’t have to take the time to fold my tent. He walked out of his room swiftly and sped down the narrow winding steps. He met no one until he got to the courtyard. Then he saw a dark figure ahead of him. He stopped, his heart beating harder than his running accounted for. But a lightning bolt revealed the face of the person who had struck such fear into him.

  “Doctor Faustroll!”

  The Frenchman tried to bow but had to grip the side of the table to keep from falling on his face.

  “Doctor Davis, I presume?” he mumbled.

  The American was going to hurry past him but was restrained by a charitable impulse. He said, “There’s uproar in Acheron, my good fellow. Now is the time to gain our freedom. Ivar was going to make a sneak attack on Arpad, but Arpad had the same idea about him. There’s the devil to pay, and Thorfinn, Ivar’s ally, has just shown up. Chaos will reign. We have an excellent chance of getting away during all the commotion.”

  Faustroll put a hand on his forehead and groaned. Then he said, “Up the River? Our quests for the probably nonexistent?”

  “Think, man! Do you want to remain a slave? Now’s the time, the only chance we may ever have!”

  Faustroll bent to pick up his grail and fishing pole. He groaned again and said, “La merde primitive! The devil is using our head as an anvil.”

  “I’m going,” Davis said. “You may come with me or not, as you please.”

  “Your concern for us is touching,” the Frenchman said. “But we really don’t have to run. Though we’ve been in lifelong bondage, we have never been a slave. Unlike the billions of the conventional and the swine-minded, we have been free.”

  A distant flash faintly illumined Faustroll. His eyes were rolling as if he were trying to see something elusive.

  “Stay here, then, and be free in your miserable bonds!” Davis shouted. “I felt it was my duty to tell you what is going on!”

  “If it had been love compelling you, it would be different.”

  “You’re the most exasperating man I’ve ever met!”

  “The gadfly has its uses, especially if it is equipped not only with a fore sting but an aft sting.”

  Davis snorted and walked away. But, by the time he had started down the hill from the tower, he heard Faustroll call out to him.

  “Wait for us, my friend, if, indeed, you are that!”

  Davis halted. He could not say that he liked the grotesque fellow. But … something in the absurd Frenchman appealed to him. Perhaps, Davis thought, it’s the physician in me. The man’s mad, and I should take care of him. I might be able to cure him someday.

  More likely, it’s just that I don’t want to be alone. Crazed company is better than none. Sometimes.

  The thunder and lightning had rolled on down the Valley. In a few minutes, the bright zigzags and the vast bowling-pin noises would be out of sight and out of ear. Then, as almost always, the downpour would stop as if a valve had been shut. The clouds would disappear within thirty minutes or so after that. And the star-filled sky would shed its pale fire on the pale weapons of the warriors and their dark blood. It would also make it easier for Faustroll and him to be seen.

  Now he could faintly hear the frightening sounds of the clash. Shrill screams, deep cries, swords clanging, drums beating, and, now and then, the bellowing of a black gunpowder bomb as it destroyed itself in a burst of light. He also became aware that the tower, in which he had thought was no living soul, was as busy as a disturbed anthill. He turned to look back. Faustroll, panting, was just about to catch up with him. He was silhouetted by the many torches of the many people streaming from the tower.

  Among them was Ann Pullen. She had put a heavy towel over her shoulders and a long one around her waist. But her white face and streaming blond hair were vivid under the flaming brand she held high.

  And there was Sharkko walking as fast as his dragging leg would permit him. He carried a grail in one hand, a sword in the other, and a large bag was strapped to his back.

  The others passed Davis on their way down the hill. Apparently, they were going either to join Ivar in the battle or to find a place where they could more closely observe it. The latter, more likely. If they thought that things were going against Ivar, they would be running, too.

  Davis grabbed a torch from a slave woman as she passed him. She protested but did not fight him. He held it up and pointed up-River.

  “Let’s go!”

  Easier said than done. Just as they reached the edge of the plain, they were forced to stop. A large body of men, many of them holding torches, jogged by. Davis looked at the round, wooden, leather-covered helmets, the broad dark faces, and the eyes with prominent epicanthic folds. He groaned. Then he said, “More of Arpad’s men! They must be a second flanking force!

  These were not Magyars but soldiers from Arpad’s ancient Siberian citizens, forming ten percent of the kingdom’s population. They looked much more like the American Indians than Eskimos or Chuk-chuks. A group of six or seven men broke off from the mass and trotted toward them. Davis yelled, “Run!” and he fled back up the hill. Behind came the sound of bare feet on the wet grass and wet mud under it. But it was Faustroll.

  When he was halfway up the hill, Davis looked behind him. The invaders were no longer in pursuit. Finding that they could not kill the two men easily, they had rejoined the army.

  After a while, he and Faustroll quit climbing along the sides of the hill and went down to the edge of the plain. Within ten minutes the starblaze was undimmed by clouds.

  “Time to look for a boat,” Davis said.

  They went slowly and stealthily among the huts. Now and then, they had to go around corpses. Most of these were women, but some had managed to kill invaders before they had been cut down. “The never-ending story,” Davis said. “When will they learn to stop killing and raping and looting? Can’t they see that it does nothing to advance them? Can’t …”

  “They didn’t see on Earth, why should they here?” Faustroll said. “But perhaps it’s a weeding-out process here. We get not just a second chance but many chances. Then, one day, poof! The evils ones and the petty, the malicious, and the hypocritical are gone! Let’s hope that that does not mean that nobody is left here. Or, perhaps, that’s the way it’s going to work out.”

  He stopped, pointed, and said, “Eureka!”

  There were many boats along here, beached or riding at anchor a few feet from the short. They chose a dugout canoe with a small mast. But, just as they were pushing it off the grass into the water, they were startled by a yell behind them.

  “Wait! For God’s sake, wait! I want to go with you!”

  They turned and saw Sharkko hobbling toward them. He was dragging another bag, a large one, behind him. No doubt, Davis thought, it was filled with loot Sharkko had picked up on the way. Despite his fear, his predatory nature had kept the upper hand.

  Davis said, “There’s not enough room for three.”

  Panting, Sharkko stopped a few feet from them. “We can take a larger boat.”

  Then he turned quickly to look down-River. The distant clamor had suddenly become closer. The starlight fell over a dark and indistinct mass advancing from the south. Shouts and clanging of bronze on bronze swelled from it. It stopped moving toward Davis for several minutes. Then the sounds ceased, and the group moved again, more swiftly now.

  Whoever the men chasing after those who fled were, they had been killed. But another hue and cry rose from behind the survivors. The men coming toward Davis began to run.

  “Get in one of the boats!” Sharkko squalled. “They’ll grab them, and we won’t have any!”

  Davis thought that that was g
ood advice, but he did not intend to take the fellow with him. He resumed helping the Frenchman push the canoe. It slid into the water. But Sharkko had splashed to it, thrown his grail and bags into it, and started to climb in. Davis grabbed the bags and threw them into the water. Sharkko screamed with fury. His fist struck Davis’s chin. Stunned, Davis staggered back and fell into the water. When he rose, sputtering, he saw that Sharkko was going after the bags. He got to the boat and threw Sharkko’s grail after him. That made the man scream more loudly. Without the grail, Sharkko would either starve to death or have to live from the food he could beg or the fish he could catch.

  Faustroll, still standing in the water, was doubled over with laughter.

  Davis’s anger ebbed and was replaced by a disgust he felt for himself. He hated Sharkko, yet despised himself for hating him and for losing his temper. It was hard to act like a Christian when dealing with such a “sleazebag” (a word he had learned from a late-twentieth-centurian).

  But he now had no time to dwell on his own failings. The running men had stopped near him. They seemed out of breath, though that was not the only reason they had halted. They were Ivar and about fifty of his Norse and Frankish warriors and a dozen women. Ann Pullen was one of them. Ivar was bloody though not badly wounded, and the bronze war-ax he waved about dripped red. He seemed to be in favor of making a stand of it against the pursuers. Some of his men were arguing against it. Davis did not know what had happened at first. By listening to them while he was getting into the canoe, he pieced out their situation.

  Apparently, the rear attack had caught Ivar by surprise. But he had rallied his men, and Arpad’s had been routed. No sooner was this done than Arpad, leading his fleet, had stormed the shore. In the melee, Ivar had killed Arpad.

  “I hewed off his sword arm!” Ivar shouted. “And his forces lost heart and fled. We slaughtered them!”

  8

  But Thorfinn the Skull-Splitter had his own plans. He had sent a part of his army to overrun the west bank. While they were doing that, he had attacked the rear of Arpad’s fleet. That was partly responsible for the panic among Arpad’s men on the east bank.

  Thorfinn had decided then, or perhaps he had long ago decided, to betray Ivar. Thus, he would become master not only of his own kingdom but of Arpad’s and Ivar’s.

  Ivar and his soldiers had not expected betrayal, but they had rallied quickly and had fought furiously. But they had been forced to run, and Thorfinn’s hounds were baying close to their heels.

  Ivar yelled in Norse, “The traitor! The traitor! No faith, no faith! Thorfinn swore by Odin on the oath-ring that we would be as brothers!”

  Davis, even in the midst of his anxiety, could not help smiling. From what he knew about Norse kings and their brothers, he was sure that there was nothing unusual about their trying to kill each other. That, in fact, had been typical of most medieval royal kin, whatever their nationality.

  Oh, he was among barbarians, and he had been just about to be free of them when the Norns decreed that they should catch up with him. No, he thought, it’s not the Norns, the three female Fates of the ancient Scandinavian religion. It’s God who’s destined this. I’ve been among the Vikings so long, I’m beginning to think like them.

  By now, Ivar had quit raving. In one of the sudden switches of mood that distinguished him, he was laughing at himself.

  “After all, Thorfinn only did what I might have done, given the circumstances. Seize the chance turn of events! Get the power! The power!”

  Faustroll, now sitting in the canoe, called out, “Your Majesty, true descendant of the great King Ubu! We believe that Power is what motivates almost all of humanity, and Power is responsible for more rationalizations and false justifyings than Religion is, though the two are by no means unconnected! You are a true son of Adam, not to mention of Eve, and perhaps of a fallen angel who saw that the daughters of men were fair and went unto them and lay with them! Go, go, go, our son! Consider Power, worship it, obey its ten thousand commandments! But we are a voice crying in the Wilderness! Crying in the jungle fertilized by the never-ending flow of desire for Power in its ten thousand manifestations, the true shit of the true universe!

  “Yet somewhere there is the Holy Grail! Seek it, find it, seize it! Be redeemed thereby and by It! In the Grail you have the greatest fountain of Power! But it renders all other Powers powerless!”

  Ivar’s counselors had been babbling while Faustroll spoke, but they fell silent when their leader lifted his hand. From a distance; not far enough away to damp the writhing of Davis’s nerves, came the yells of Thorfinn’s men as they ran toward the fugitives.

  “For God’s sake!” Davis murmured. “Let’s get into the boats and get away!”

  Ivar shouted, “You are a strange man, Doctor Faustroll! One touched by whatever gods may be! You may have been sent by them! Or by Chance, of which I have heard so much from men of the latter days since I came to this world. Either way, you may have been sent to me. So, instead of slaying you, which would do little good except to get rid of your presence, and I might run into you again, I will go with you! Perhaps …”

  He was silent for a moment while the others about him looked more man uneasy. Then he roared, “Into the boats!”

  No one protested, though a few of the more aggressive warriors sighed. They scrambled, though not in a panicky manner, into the vessels. Ivar roared orders, assigning each to a particular craft. Davis was commanded, along with Faustroll and Ann Pullen, to get into the largest craft, a single-masted merchant boat with oarlocks for fourteen rowers. Ivar took the helm while the rowers began pulling and the big sail was unfurled.

  He laughed uproariously and said, “The Norns have smiled on me again! These must be the boats Arpad’s men used to bring them to this bank for the flanking attack!”

  Davis, Pullen, and Faustroll were sitting on a bench just below the helm deck. The Frenchman called up, “Perhaps it’s a sign from them that you should leave this area forever!”

  “What! And allow the troll-hearted Thorfinn to crow that he defeated Ivar Ragnarsson?”

  He shouted in Norse at the warriors who had not yet gotten into a boat. “You there! Helgi, Ketil, Bjorn, Thrand! Push the empty boats into the stream! We will jeer at our enemies while they dance frustrated and furious on the bank and utter threats that will harm us no more than farts against the wind!”

  Helgi the Sharp yelled back,

  “Boatless will they be.

  Boneless makes them bootyless.

  Boneheaded Thorfinn,

  Bare is your bottom!”

  Those within hearing broke into laughter. And Ivar laughed until he choked, which relieved Davis, who had become even more anxious on hearing the stanza. The Dane became very angry when someone slipped up and used the surname he did not care to hear.

  “I love the words,” Ivar called out. “But, Helgi, your meter is blunted. Wretched. However, considering our haste and that your meter always scans as if it were a newborn foal trying to walk …”

  He laughed again for several seconds. Then, recovering, he bellowed, “Row as if Loki’s daughter, the hag Hel, clutches your ankles with corpse-cold hands to drag you down into Niflheim! Bend your backs as if you are the bow of Ull and your arms are the god’s hundred-league arrows! Row, row, row!”

  There might have been rowers as mighty as the Norse, though none was better. However, these men had been in face-to-face battle, and nothing tunneled the energy out more swiftly. Nevertheless, they dug in as if they had had a long night’s sleep. Their enemies on shore were left far behind. But the starlight glimmered on a large mass along the eastern bank moving up-River. It was about a half-mile behind them. Thorfinn’s fleet, part of it, anyway, was hot on their trail. Not so hot, perhaps, since his men would also be battle-weary.

  “We make for the kingdom of my brother, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye!” Ivar said loudly. “It’s a long long way off, but our pursuers will tire before we do. We’ll be safe then, and we can l
oll around, drink all the thickly sugared lichen beer and the grail-given liquor we want. We will also have our fill of the beautiful women there. Or vice versa.”

  The rowers had no breath to laugh, though some tried.

  Sigurd was one of the few men Ivar trusted and was probably his only trusted brother. He had been a mighty Viking when young. But, in his middle age, he had hung up his sword and become a peaceful and just ruler of Sjæland, Denmark’s largest island. The kingdom he had established since coming to the Riverworld was four hundred miles from Ivar’s. He had visited his brother once, and Ivar had visited him twice. Davis had seen Sigurd every time. The slender, wriggly, and red birthmark on the white of his right eye had given him his Terrestrial surname. Though it was gone when he was resurrected, the nickname stuck.

  Davis’s thoughts were broken by cries behind him. He stood up and looked around the raised helmsman’s deck. The boat holding Helgi and three men was passing by a man in the water. Though Davis could not see the swimmer’s face, he knew that he had to be Sharkko. Apparently, he was asking to be taken into the boat. But they were laughing as they rowed, and presently, Sharkko, still screaming, was left behind them.

  A thrill of sympathy, though fleeting, ran through Davis. Sharkko was a liar, a cheat, a blusterer, a coward, and a bully. Yet the man could not believe that there were people, and they were many, who did not like him. It was pathetic, which was why Davis pitied him at that moment.

  He sat down and looked sidewise at Ann, who was sitting near him. A small thin blue towel was draped over her head like a scarf that women wore in church on Earth. She had a strange expression, a mixture of sweetness and longing. Or so it seemed to him, though who knew what the bitch was thinking. Yet she looked like a madonna, mother of the infant Jesus, in a painting Davis had seen in a cathedral.